‘Sam Allardyce has two games to save Blackburn career,’ read the headline in a national newspaper.

Even then it seemed unlikely, right now it appears downright ludicrous.

While Big Sam is in charge at Ewood Park, Rovers can forget all about relegation.

Allardyce will have been aware of the gossip, because it was being whispered all around Ewood in early January.

Rovers had not won in nine games, and discontent about results and the much-debated style of play was growing.

The easiest thing to do is to panic, to lose faith without due cause.

If some outside the inner sanctum did, those within it did not.

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs,” was how Rudyard Kipling put it.

Just as Brian Laws did at Burnley last week, Allardyce kept his head.

All exit talk, sparked by the article in the Daily Mirror, was dismissed with the confidence of a man who knew perfectly well he was going nowhere.

There was never any need to even consider a change of manager. Rovers were never going to go down, not with their squad and not with such experience at the helm.

When Allardyce strode in to meet Rovers chairman John Williams, after Paul Ince had been dismissed, he might as well have opened with the line: “Your worries are over.”

Allardyce knew where he wanted to take Rovers and he knew how to get there.

He remains one of the best managers around and the chances are he knows it, given that he named his horse ‘Gifted Leader’. He has strenuously denied claims, though, that it favours the big hoof.

Indeed, with a style of play much better than some are willing to acknowledge, Rovers have won six times and drawn against Chelsea and Manchester United in the past three months.

If they do not finish in the top half this season, they surely will next year with a squad that is already decent and ever improving.

A return to the days of challenging for Europe may be beyond them, but that is more to do with the increasing gap between the top seven and the rest than any under-achievement on their own part.

Clubs in the bottom half of the Premier League will always be vulnerable to relegation, and the financial implications that come with it.

But not Rovers. Not under Big Sam.